Postpartum Depression: An Interdisciplinary Conversation on Reproductive Health and Mental Illness

DATE: Wednesday, 5 June 2019
TIME: 3:00-5:00pm
VENUE: RRST 4.04

seminar posterTalk: The Grandmother Blues: Postpartum Depression and the Grandmother-Mother-Baby Triad in Intergenerational Households in Luzhou, China

Speaker: Dr. Katherine Mason, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Brown University

Panel Discussants:

  • Dr. Sarah Chan, Lecturer, Bau Institute of Medical and Health Sciences Education, HKU
  • Dr. Priscilla Song, Assistant Professor, Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, HKU
  • Dr. Carol Tsang, Lecturer, Department of History, HKU
  • Dr. Harry Wu, Assistant Professor & Director, Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, HKU

Dr. Katherine Mason will share preliminary results from an ongoing, multi-sited ethnographic study of mothers experiencing postpartum depression and anxiety symptoms in China and the US. The talk will focus on the role that grandmothers can play in exacerbating symptoms of postpartum mental illness in intergenerational households in China. Dr. Mason will also address related issues in American households and will deconstruct the notion of "social support" as a factor in promoting health and wellness among new mothers in distress.

Following the talk, an interdisciplinary panel of HKU experts from the Faculty of Arts and Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine will discuss the intersections of reproductive health and mental illness from the perspectives of history, anthropology, obstetrics, and psychiatry.

This event is sponsored by the School of Humanities (SoH), with support from the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine (CHM) and the Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit (MEHU).